IBCSR will enjoy the fruits of rich collaboration in this undertaking. Dr. Wildman has brought together an international team of world-class scholars both from the simulation and modeling community and from the world of the scientific study of religion. IBCSR will be collaborating particularly with the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center (VMASC) at Old Dominion University, which houses many of the world's top experts in modeling and computer simulation. These interactions among these researchers promise to be transformative.
Computer simulation and modeling provides a robust, powerful way to test hypotheses and hone theories about cognition, society, and religion – realms where rigorous experiments are famously hard to carry out. For the first time, computer modeling technology is powerful enough to gather up all the major theories of religion and test their predictions in rich simulated worlds. This project might make history.
